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Throughout history, disruptive innovations have changed how we run businesses and live our lives, from emails to cars to smartphones, and mobile applications are no exception. Nowadays, advances in technology have enabled people not only to consume it, but also be creators of it.

The term Citizen Developer, first coined by the technology research firm Gartner, refers to the end users who create their own software for consumption by others in the workplace. In other words, these are people who have not been formally trained in coding or software development, but are now empowered to create their own solutions thanks to the availability of drag and drop development tools.

End users can now design, build, test and deploy their own applications among their co-workers to be more productive and efficient in the workplace and on the go whilst using mobile devices. Rather than depending on IT departments and developers to satisfy their needs, they can now quickly build and deploy apps among their co-workers to manage tasks, track finances or invoices, measure results and share information, the possibilities are endless.

These citizen developers may work for large enterprises who want to build an app for their own personal working needs or they may work for SMBs who don’t have the technical skills to do it in house, nor do they have the financial resources to hire developers. Empowering people with the tools to create their own apps lowers the barriers to entry to the app world and removes the cost and skill factors that previously restricted access.

It´s also clear from this Google Trend Search that over the last four years, people are far more interested in making their own apps, rather than learning the skills required to program. People don’t connect making apps with programming or coding as is evident from their search results. They want to make apps without getting involved in all the technicalities.

In a survey carried out by Udemy, almost 33% of employees claimed that they needed but didn’t have the technical skills such as programming for their current job. But what if we supply them with the tools that removes the need for technical skills such as programming?

Twenty years ago, the idea of non-technically skilled people creating their own software or websites would have seemed like a far off future, but it has not only become a reality, but also a necessity. The demand for apps is on the rise but the number of professional programmers is growing linearly so by providing end users with the tools to create their own business applications rather than relying on others to do it for them is a powerful solution to meeting this demand. WordPress is a great example of a tool that has empowered people to create their own websites without being formally trained in programming or web development. A whopping 18.9% of websites online are powered by WordPress and that figure is increasing by the day.

As of October 2014, mobile devices now outnumber humans for the first time in history according to the U.S Census Bureau with the rate of growth increasing five times faster than the human population. The number of apps available has been growing exponentially with Apple´s App Store reaching 1.2 million apps this summer and recording over 75 billion downloads to date.

So what are the options available for people who want to build their own apps? We’ve adapted the following graphic with Commit Strip´s permission to include what we consider as the third method for mobile app development: Radarc Online.

So where does this leave programmers? Well, giving an author a faster typewriter, won’t make him a better writer – it allows him to be more productive and efficient but it won´t give him the ability to write a bestselling novel. Similarly, while these new technological developments have levelled the competitive playing field and made app creation more affordable and accessible than ever before, success will depend on what you make and do with these tools. It might have worked for Kevin Costner in Field Of Dreams, but the motto “If You Build It, They Will Come” holds less weight in the app world as the most successful apps are derived from great ideas, not just great design.

Here at Icinetic we’re delighted to announce the launch of Radarc Online, a visual and intuitive online editor which enables users without programming skills to create their own apps. You don’t need to be formally trained in programming to use Radarc Online, but if you are, you can further customise and extend your mobile app as users are given access to the fully native source code upon app generation.

Now you can be a creator of technology, not just a consumer of it. Check out www.radarconline.com to build your app today!

Icinetic is looking for a passionate and experienced JavaScript Developer with meta-modeling skills to join our team in Seville, Spain.
Experienced in front-end development with AngularJS or MeteorJS, NodeJS, and unit testing. Experience with TypeScript or CoffeeScript is welcomed.
The candidate will need to evaluate new technologies and libraries, build proof of concepts and real robust software components.

Send your resume to info(at)icinetic.com with reference JS42 in the subject.

Which apps are going to revolutionize our future?

A Killer App is traditionally defined as one whose success justifies the purchase of the device on which it runs. But in the Smartphone environment, these apps are also characterized by becoming number one in downloads since they provide coverage for a basic functionality or simple entertainment.

The user communities these apps create are of such magnitude that feedback inevitably occurs between them. This feedback causes the adoption process of this app to depend on the fact that others are already using it, not because it is the best choice – as can happen, for example, with Whatsapp.

What are the main features of current Killer Apps?

Simple. (They have a single clear and specific objective)

Intuitive. (No need to consult the manual to learn how to use 80% of the app)

Affordable. (They have no economic barriers)

These features have contributed to a similar path of development.

A simple application is usually built in an equally simply way and may even be developed for a single device.

It is necessary to implement the idea quickly. Speed prevents imitators with more resources from getting ahead of you in your own race.

You have to minimize investment costs as much as possible, so as not to drown while getting the market volume necessary to make a profit.

However, the next Killer Apps will likely need to break some of these trends.

The first objective is to become device-independent and make it so neither where nor when the app is used matters. This will inevitably lead us to converge with the Cloud which is in charge of remembering what the user did and making sure that the user can continue to use the app anywhere.
Secondly, users will no longer settle for simple applications but will instead demand that complex applications seem simple. This is not as easy to achieve and will not only force us to use the Cloud but to also build smart applications. It will no longer be enough for an app to provide us with data or information; it will need to provide us with knowledge.

A potential example of these smart applications would include advanced user interfaces and the ability to request what you want by simply using your voice.

The future Killer Apps will undoubtedly be smart and will follow us on any device within our reach.

Jean Bézivin (@jbezivin) (see slide 4 here) has a great slide about how the number of world-wide professional developers grows linearly respect to time, and at the same time, the need for software grows exponentially.

Mobile application is a specific market where the explosion for new software are more demanding than never before.

The obvious conclusion, developers are not going to be enough to cope with the demand without improving their productivity in orders of magnitude and/or lowering the entry barrier for non-programmers to create applications.

You know, probably it is me as an MDD/MDE practitioner could be biased, but to my best knowledge, I strongly think that Model Driven Engineering is in an excellent position to play crucial role in both worlds:

For professional developers: to provide tools to provide such productivity improvement.

For end users: to provide tools as easy as possible to allow non-programmers to solve their common tasks.

We are glad to announce that La Caixa, via its specialized fund for digital technologies “Caixa Capital TIC” and a group of investors has invested a total of 655.000 € in Icinetic.

The funding will be used to reinforce our sales department and for the launch of Radarc worldwide.
Radarc is a product for rapid development of software on diverse platforms and devices.

Since the initial Radarc launch, the tool has achieved more than 4.000 users and sales over 500.000 euros with customers like Endesa or Microsoft, to mention a few.

Icinetic welcomes all the new investors and thank them for their trust in our company. This milestone make us very proud of our team and encourage us to keep pushing innovation and quality in the Software Industry.

Big and medium sized companies are increasingly demanding custom software to cover their key business processes. Speed, flexibility and ability to adapt to the continuous changes in business processes is crucial to compete and differentiate in a globalized software market.

In this context, CIOs and Development Team Managers have to prospect and make long term bets on new platforms and technologies, in order to secure service to the business through the entire applications lifecycle, without forgetting to minimize costs and optimize resources.

An adequate management of enterprise architectures with Radarc, aligned with a good Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) tools suite, like the one Microsoft provides within Visual Studio, complemented with Team Foundation Server (TFS), constitutes a safe bet to govern the enterprise architecture and, at the same time, gives architects and developers the best tools to reach excellence.

Windows 8 provides a full new platform ready to provide a new user experience focused on consumers across devices: desktop and tablets.

Applications on this new area has to deal with new APIs, (WinRT) and the constrains imposed for the new UI, platform and should be able to run in different architectures x86, x64 and ARM and be distributed via the Windows Store.

This is the main path of distribution Windows 8 applications will follow.

However, there are other types of applications, in particular, LOB (Line of Business) applications that are tailored to specific closed sets of users, demanding access to local resources or just with a limited and controlled distribution inside a company or a set of collaborators.

This second scenario is key in the acceptance of Windows 8 for enterprise software.

Here at Icinetic, we are helping customers to follow this path and incrementally move their current applications to the Window 8 ‘Modern UI’.

Technically speaking the technique is called: side loading.Read more →

Apple has not included NFC in its new Iphone 5. They must have their reasons. Knowing Apple, it is possible that they have prepared their own standard or a future update that includes this technology in a “5S” phone – who knows. The reality is that today a window is opening in which the rest of the “latest generation” devices (Galaxy, Nokia, etc.) incorporate NFC and the Iphone 5 does not. If we look at the update rate of previous Iphones – such as, for example, 3 and 4 – we see that the average delay is 1 year between phone and update. This is the time to enter the fray, within which the NFC mobile devices have to assert the real value of this technology to the end consumer.